(The Sacramento Bee)—The conservative Liberty Justice Center this week fired its opening salvo in the legal battle to save the social media platform TikTok, which Congress voted to ban unless the Chinese-owned app is sold.
The Liberty Justice Center filed its opening brief in the case on June 28, arguing that “the act does not make sense as an effort to protect data security (because) there are more effective means the government could use that would do more to protect Americans’ data while infringing much less on their First Amendment rights.
“On the other hand, the act makes total sense as a means of accomplishing what many of its sponsors said they wanted: preventing the communication of certain ideas to its large audience,” it added.
The Liberty Justice Center lawsuit is one of three such suits challenging the law. TikTok has also sued to block it from going into effect, as has a group of TikTok content creators.
A U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia judge has combined all three lawsuits into one case, which will be heard on Sept. 16.
According to the Liberty Justice Center, TikTok has requested a ruling by Dec. 6, in order to allow time for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case before the ban goes into effect.